


Heart of Sugar and Lemon

by eldvarpa



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Genderfluid Character, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25875763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldvarpa/pseuds/eldvarpa
Summary: Eöl and Curufin (and Celebrimbor) meet for the last time (but not exactly as canon would have it).
Relationships: Curufin/Eöl
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13





	Heart of Sugar and Lemon

“What about your first son?” 

Eöl looked up from Curufin and met Celebrimbor's gaze – his own gaze, coated in Fëanorian silver, nestled in sharp Fëanorian features. Celebrimbor stared at him, the same concern in his foreign eyes that sparked from his mother's voice. 

“People don't know he is my son, so your kin accept him,” he said. 

“A kinslayer's child, with a murky parentage,” Curufin countered. 

Eöl shifted his gaze back to him-her. Curufin, the fifth son of Fëanor who was also a daughter and the mother of his oldest child. 

“Celebrimbor grew up with you –”

“Don't try to pretend you weren't there.”

“Maeglin is different,” Eöl insisted. “Maeglin only knows my way of life, my world, and is used to it. Gondolin isn't the place for him.”

Curufin still frowned at him but didn't argue with that. He slowly nodded his crown of braided hair, irritatingly neat even on the wind-swept plains of western Himlad. 

“I know,” he sighed.

“Then why didn't you stop him!”

“Because he didn't want to be stopped.”

“You could have stopped him regardless!”

“Even if I had tried to, my brother would not have been fine with that.”

“So he could get back at me," Eöl scoffed, "because he's jealous, because I slept with his sister-brother and his best friend and he can't accept it.”

“ _Also_ because he's worried about Aredhel.”

“Aredhel,” Eöl echoed, bitterly. 

He had kept Aredhel because he couldn't hold onto Curufin, because they agreed they could not - did not want to - be together as husband and wife. Because Aredhel was Curufin's cousin and there was a vague resemblance, not enough to make Eöl really care about her, but just enough, and Aredhel's brothers didn't surround him on every side. 

“Bauglir take Aredhel, she can go fuck an army of orcs if she is so inclined. She has no idea what's doing to our son!”

“She seemed to be very upset,” Curufin said, but his frown eased. “And my brother doesn't know you as well as I do.”

 _Your brother wasn't desperate enough to chase a shadow of his father by sleeping with a dark elf,_ Eöl thought. But that was not exactly it. A part of it, definitely, but not all of it. 

“Eöl.” The worry on Curufin's face took on a more ominous edge. “If you go to Gondolin, you won't come back, and not just because my dear cousin Turucáno will try to prevent you from leaving.”

Eöl tensed. Curufin wasn't known for his foresight, but if you did actually know Curufin, you soon realised he had a very clear grasp of the way things were and of the way things would likely be. A scary insight, if you considered his determination in spite of that clarity of vision. 

“I won't let Maeglin go just like this. He may be eager to meet his mother's kin and live among them, but he won't be happy. And -” _I can't lose him_ , he almost said out loud. “You know how _we_ are.”

Curufin lowered his eyes, nodded again. 

He grabbed Eöl's hand. 

Her grip was strong. 

A smith's grip. 

A part of Eöl wished to stay in that grip. 

“Stay the night, at least.”

Eöl made a weak attempt to pull back. He was dark and she was light but their actual colour matched. It matched, like so many other things about them.

“I promise this isn't a ruse to keep you here, with us. They will have to stop too, rest their horses. I will give you my horse. She will fly you to Gondolin.”

Eöl did waver, but his hesitaton didn't last more than a hiss of the wind. He let his shoulders sag, and Curufin's grip pulled him closer. 

Celebrimbor watched them disappear inside the tent they had set up on a knoll, with an unhindered view of the whole of Himlad, and of the sunset bleeding over the moors, of the darkness to the west. He set about collecting wood for a bonfire, his mother's cats who had followed them loping about him. Nan Dungortheb loomed in his mind, more than in his vision. He put the bonfire between him and it. He whiled away the night carving random pieces of wood, burrowed deep in his thoughts. He had heard plenty about loss, watched others' losses, but had never really lost anyone close until now. 

At dawn Eöl emerged from the tent, putting away some throwing daggers that Curufin was used to carrying. Long and thin and deadly, especially if slathered with poison. They could be useful against the spiders of Nan Dungortheb.

Eöl came up to him, held his gaze. 

Celebrimbor silently handed him the lembas his mother had prepared and a bright green jewel he had made, a small simple thing. 

Eöl rolled it around in his palm, smiling slightly, then hugged it in his hand.

“Thank you, Tyelperinquar.”

Celebrimbor smiled back, but felt like screaming. It was only the second time his father had ever uttered the Quenya version of his name, and there was everything in it that his father wanted to leave with him. His mind rebelled against the idea that they would never meet again. He wished that Curufin was wrong, and that Eöl would come back from Gondolin.

Curufin's horse came up to them, wagging her head as if she knew exactly what was going on. She too knew Eöl. She had been taken him and Curufin on many rides out in the Ered Luin where only the Dwarves could see and it didn't matter if they saw because Celebrimbor had been born right there, in their home, and had spent many days there, with both his parents.

Celebrimbor and his father hugged one last time, then Eöl rode off. 

He was just a tiny moving dot in the distance, soon to be swallowed by the darkness of the spider vale, when Curufin left the tent, her hair tousled.

He stood next to Celebrimbor.

Instinctively, Celebrimbor wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and pulled him close. 

Curufin bit his lower lip, inhaled a slow breath that was meant to steady his voice, and whispered. “Your grandfather left just like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this came right after _The essence between_ (and has the same Curufin), and I just liked all the implications of it.


End file.
